Inspiration

Ladislav Sutnar was one of the most significant and also most
universal pioneers of modern graphic and information design. It was
therefore only a matter of time before he added font creation into
his area of expertise. This took place in 1958, when he drew a part
of the alphabet and a set of numerals to be used in marking houses in
Bronx in New York. He would later develop a similar concept for the
information system of the local Brooklyn School. It’s not surprising
that Sutnar’s fonts have all the characteristics typical of his work:
simplicity, lucidity, directness and a strong graphical impact.

Construction

The Ladislav font revitalises Sutnar’s legacy, while not explicitly
copying any of his original fonts. It however keeps true to their
technicist character and initial principles of character creation - a
simple modular system of combined geometrical segments. This approach
affects all round shapes of capital and lowercase letters, as well as
the shapes of the majority of numbers.

Uppercase

Basic uppercase forms are derived from pencil and ink drawings
for the Brooklyn School navigation system. Most characters’
proportions are altered however, as the optical effect is given
preference over strict and limiting adherence to geometry. During the
course of the work, several construction changes of some of the
details have taken place, such as in the connections of the diagonals
of the uppercase M, N, R and the number 4, while some
of the characters were completely redrawn (for example Q, S, 2).
The whole character set therefore has a much more balanced appearance
as well as increased legibility.

Lovercase

The key to the shape of lowercase letters is found in the sign
on the residential house at 645 Castle Hill Ave.,
represented by the distinctive shape composition characteristic of
the letter a. The lowercase letters seamlessly tie in with the
character of the uppercase letters: primarily their simple frame,
stripped of all superfluous details. By far the most distinctive
character of the type family is the atypical lowercase g, created by
two unconnected circles and dot-shaped ear. Other characters are
executed delicately, in a civil fashion.

Styles

The Ladislav type family consists of font styles, derived from four
basic weights (Light to Bold). Apart from traditional italics,
Ladislav also contains atypical, left-inclining italics. These
weren’t simply slanted left, but were completely redrawn, so that
they would look natural and would work in harmony with the other
styles in all weights.

Character Sets

Apart from the default uppercase and lowercase letters, we’ve also
created a number of stylistic alternates to bring variety and allow
rythm changes to typesetting. The first stylistic set replaces
compressed rounded characters with variants derived from circles,
serif brackets in joints to rounded shapes can be enabled and several
shape alternatives of characters can be used. The set of diacritics
is traditionally extensive enough to support the majority of
languages using the Latin alphabet.

Tabular Figures

The font contains both proportional and monospaced numbers
in the basic character set. These maintain a constant
character width in all styles and allow easy vertical alignment.

Free

Bonus

The Inline uppercase style supplements the Ladislav font family with
a powerful decorative element, which further expands the font’s
potential. Non-standard ligatures, together with stylistic variants
of several characters, provide a completely new rhythm to each
headline.

This additional style is available for free until the end of June.
All you need to do is register at
www.suitcasetype.com,
and you’ll be able to download the print version
of the font, as well as generate the required webfont
for your site.

Ladislav Sutnar (1897—1976) devoted his whole life
to comprehensible visual communication in public spaces
and in everyday life. First in Czechoslovakia and from 1939
onwards also in New York, where he joined numerous other influential
emigrants, such as El Lisickij, Herbert Bayer or László Moholy-Nagy.
Sutnar progressively worked on graphic design of books and magazines,
advertising graphics, product catalogues, visual styles and
orientation systems, but he also designed wooden toys, engaged
himself in scenography, drinking glassware and porcelain creation. A
significant segment of his activity was also exhibition design and,
naturally, free range painting. His insights into design and
visual flow are noted in several specialist publications (Controlled
Visual Flow, Visual Design in Action), which rank as one of the
most important works about graphic design to have been published.
Selected texts by Ladislav Sutnar are also available in the
recently published book
Sutnar in texts (Mental Vitamins).